Propaganda and World War One

Propaganda was used in World
War One as in any war - and the truth suffered. Propaganda ensured that the
people only got to know what their governments wanted them to know. In World
War One, the lengths to which governments would go to in an effort to
blacken the enemy’s name reached a new level.

To ensure that everybody thought in the
way the government wanted, all forms of information were controlled. Newspapers
were expected to print what the government wanted the reader to read. In fact,
though this would appear to be a form of censorship, the newspapers of Britain,
effectively controlled by the media barons of the time, were happy to play ball.
They printed headlines that were designed to stir up emotions regardless of
whether they were accurate or not. The most infamous headlines included:

i)
“Belgium child’s hands cut off by Germans”

ii)
“Germans crucify Canadian officer”

Britain's portrayal of
Germany

These were designed to develop and
strengthen the current of hatred that was already engendered in Britain. The
same thing was done in Germany – untrue headlines were tolerated and even
encouraged by the German authorities. Some headlines were:

i)
“French doctors infect German wells with plague germs”

ii)
“German prisoners blinded by
Allied captors”

One of the most infamous stories that
went around was adapted the further it got from the Western Front. The story
went from monks in Antwerp being forced to ring bells to celebrate the Germans
occupation of the city to the monks refusing to do this and being tied to the
clappers of the bells and being used as human clappers – and being killed. It
was all nonsense but to the minds of the British, where the story all but ended,
it seemed to encapsulate the evil of the Germans and justify why the fight was
going on. The one thing that suffered in the war was the truth. There were
numerous stories in Britain of German soldiers parading round Belgium towns with
babies on their bayonets

However, the media was used for other
purposes. British newspapers published casualty figures that were acceptable to
the government but less than accurate. British success in battles was emphasised
as opposed to the minimal gains actually made. All countries were guilty of
this. Parisians did not know about the danger Verdun
was in during the initial stages of the German attack despite being just 150
miles from the city. The French authorities simply clamped down on the truth.
Anybody caught spreading the truth regarding Verdun
was liable for arrest as an agent provocateur.

The same was true in any country
involved in the war.A good example would be the
following extract from a British newspaper.

“To the north of Ypres
our progress has been continued, especially on our left. We have taken
six quick-firers, two bomb-throwers, and much material; and made several
hundred prisoners, including several officers.

The losses of the
enemy were extremely high. At a single point on the front, in the
proximity of the canal we counted more than six hundred German dead.

On the heights of
the Meuse, on the front Les Eparges-St Remy-Calonne trench, we have
continued to gain ground, about one kilometre, and have inflicted on the
enemy very severe losses.”

This was written in April
1915. No-where does it describe the British casualties at Ypres
or the problems that were encountered there by the British. No British newspaper
described the scenes at Victoria Station when carriages of wounded soldiers
arrived back in London - but very late at night or in the early hours of the
morning in an effort to blot out the sheer numbers lost in battle - be it Ypres
or the Somme.

Regarding the same battle,
a German newspaper reported that:

"In
Flanders the British yesterday again attempted to regain the ground they
had lost. In the afternoon they attacked from both sides but the attack
completely broke down. An evening attack further east failed, with
severe British losses."

In Britain the Defence of
the Realm Act listed things that correspondents could write about but more
important, could not write about. What they could not write about included

the number
of British troops and where they were in a particular part of the war front